NOT "TAINTED MONEY," BUT "TAINTED MEN."
JUDGE DILL, of the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey, entertains the correct idea of the responsibility for corrupt business methods so prevalent in the world to-day. He gave up a lucrative corporation practise for the position he now holds at a comparatively small salary. Of his former practise he says: "I never took an annual retainer from a corporation in my life. I never wanted to put myself in a position where I would have to do something I didn't want to do. There is a mistaken idea about corporations. A corporation isn't bad. It's the men in it. In cases where the criminal negligence of corporations results in the loss of human life, the individuals that compose the corporation should be held accountable. "If you want to stop head-on collisions, put a director on the cowcatcher. You won't have any more of them, will you? No. Don't indict the corporation; indict the men. One object some men have in incorporating is to be able to do things as corporations that they wouldn't do as individuals. There is ground for the assertion that because the men who do these things are too high up, because they have vast capital and great influence behind them, their acts are designated as 'operation,' rather than 'crimes.' "I've been asked forty times why I took a place on the bench of the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals. A large part of the corporation business of the nation is done in that state, because the corporations are organized there. The questions of internal government of the corporations are sent back to the State which created them. The other courts haven't jurisdiction. In other words, New Jersey must spank her own children. I thought I'd like to take hold of the spanker. "Tainted money? Tainted money is not. Do you have to figure out the history of every dollar to find out whether it is tainted or not? Money has no character. Money isn't tainted. It's tainted men. It wasn't the thirty pieces of silver that betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ; it was Judas Iscariot. This country is suffering, not from tainted money, but from tainted men."